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Tuesday, 31 December 2013

By MykePGenre: Arcade: Pig PesterThis marks number 5 of the
quadrilogy.

I’m probably in the
minority in that I’ve never played the original game on which MykeP has based
his Spectrum version, but I’m going to assume any similarities are
cosmetic.Using a complex engine that emulates
gravity and power accurately would make a very playable game, and Myke’s version
applies neither of these properties.

Like his other games it’s a
visual treat (especially the gorgeous
loading screen) and an audible assault, as the intro screen displays. To my great surprise this game operates at a
playable speed!Using QAOP to control
angle and power, the aim is to hit the green blobs (oops sorry – Pigs) at the top of the screen.Unfortunately the angle can only be shifted
in 15 degree increments, and there are only 3 steps of power.I may be missing a trick but as far as I can
tell each screen is impossible to complete as a result!(though
if someone manages it please tell me how).

There are some lovely
success screens throughout this game, but unfortunately I’ve only managed to
see them via hacking rather than playing.Thankyou Myke!EDIT > The game is actually playable, I made the mistake that you were aiming for the pigs at the top of the screen. You are in fact aiming for invisible pigs off screen to the right. To get you started (as per the Excel sheet) to beat screen 1 in one go fire 50 degrees and power 2.Download TZX hereDownload Excel pointers here

Monday, 30 December 2013

By WookieeGenre: Shart InterceptorLBSD marks Wookiee’s third
entry into the competition and this time he’s had help, from a certain Mrs
Wookiee.I don’t know which of the two
were responsible for the C: Nonsense in BASIC error that results after loading
(before even starting the game) but
it gets bonus points.I am however,
deeply concerned that daveysludge’s toilet humour syndrome is contagious.

EDIT >> Oops apologies, Lucky Bird
Shit Dude is a 128k only game, use the Tape Loader option on a 128K model and
you’ll be fine.LBSD
follows the classic formula of so many catch the cash games, but with a ploppy twist,
and the cultural inclusion that having a bird crap on you is in fact good luck*.Use ‘O’ and ‘P’ to move laterally and catch
the poop from the bird, which leaps 3 character squares sideways on every
release (some kind of googly?) for
some reason.Every successful ‘catch’
increases your luck by one, and every one that reaches the lawn does the
opposite.The aim of the game is, I
presume, to last until the end of the time limit and accrue as many poo-butts
as possible.With hacking it looks like
the best possible is 14 in the allotted time.

*E.g. China and the more sophisticated parts
of France.

I
can’t find any trace in the code or game of the ‘used johnny’ hazard as
promised by the intro screen (but then I
am demob happy and have been at the xmas sherry), so I’m going to put this
down as a lazy, incomplete, rush job that is exactly what this competition is looking for!

Like
Wookiee’s other releases you have to be impressed with it, as it’s totally in
BASIC and uses a mix of classic UDGs and ASCII.Qualities that render this perfect Cassette 50 material.Thankyou Wookiees!Download here.

Sunday, 22 December 2013

With R-Swype, davey has
completed his copro-trilogy and also coined another excellent poop-pun.It bears more similarities to Dung Darach
than Thunderturds, though it’s not a mere rehash – it has some pretty nifty new
additions.It should also be pointed out
that like his other games, it is programmed in machine code, features great
graphics making clever use of the spectrum’s attributes, is very playable and
far too good for the CGC! However, as we approach that time of year in which many of us spend a lot of time working on a hearty yule log, it is well timed.

The aim of the game is to
guide Mark Barton Dung around and ram 3 poops down the bog, at which point
Scott Faece appears (announced by a bit of BEEP FX digital speech) and you must
collect the Omega Cider which fuels the rocket out.There is a nifty bit of gameplay in the later
levels with the bog roll, which Mark Barton Dung can shift but Scott Faece
cannot.So you have to think ahead to
allow Scott to access the cider, and ensure the rocket is not impeded by the
bogroll (hmm, what sort of rocket can’t
go through paper?).The time limits
often prove prohibitive (see hack sack) but what can I say, this game is
fantastic – play it.

Saturday, 21 December 2013

By Steve McCreaGenre: Christmas Cack"What's for Christmas Ma?""CARP!"Picture the scene – it is
December 1983 and you scamper down the stairs 4 at a time in your dressing gown
to open the next door on the advent calendar.What delights may it contain? A prayer? A nice picture of a festive
scene? A captured dream?Mostly though one hoped for a chocolate to
have on the bus to school.But while
chomping on this low quality confection you may have wondered, “is it possible?
could the excitement of the advent calendar really
be captured on my ZX-Spectrum?”

Well you probably didn’t
wonder that, but Steve has created it anyway.Here we have a computer version of the advent calendar, each day giving
a new treat (or UDG if you prefer, and speaking as a UDG addict it is actually a treat for me).Steve admits this is a quick one by his usual
standards, though he still couldn’t avoid it being a charming little erm,
utility?Perhaps if released during the
80’s it would have set the world alight (and
I dare say a few Christmas trees, as youngsters left their Spectrums on
overnight to save time in the morning…).

I think some mornings would
be less disappointing than others though, as I can’t even tell what the bloody
hell the 22nd is meant to be.It’s more compact than
Steve’s other 24 entries, and if I didn’t know better I’d say it was a shameless attempt
to bump his total entries for the year to a round 25.Thankyou Steve!Download here

UDG Strip Snap marks Myke’s
4 entry to his trilogy and the second strip snap game in the 2013 competition.While Andrew Greene’s version pitted your twitching
digits against the might of Sam Fox, UDG strip snap caters for the full range
of tastes.So to begin you select your
opponent from the handsome Hank, tasty Tina and the er..KT 81 for the
technosexuals I presume, which is a thing apparently.You also get some lovely
nudey UDG graphics and animations, which I can in all honesty imagine my much
younger self getting frightfully excited about.

It’s standard strip snap
rules, last to say ‘SNAP’, or press S in this case, removes an item of
clothing.This version has a financial
aspect where items of clothes are sold back when a mistake is made, reducing the
tally.Easy mode really is easy, to lose
that round you’d need to be virtually catatonic, but intermediate provides more
of a challenge.The Expert setting is
bugged (see hacksack) and has the same
time settings as BASIC (bonus points
there).There is a really smart in
game easter egg, press ‘E’ on the intro screen and you’ll see what I mean.Speaking of easter eggs there is a hash scan
thingy hiding under the attributes on the loading screen, since I lack the
technology to read where it leads I hope someone else can help out here.

They say the brain is the
biggest erogenous zone (and after my
genitals that’s true) which is good because you’ll need a bit of
imagination to get aroused by this game!(and yes, you do get to see everything)Thankyou Myke!A lovely 15th anniversary update
to the original version.Download here.HACK SACK:

Tuesday, 17 December 2013

Oh wow, I’m so pleased my excessive
bleating about there being too many football games has paid off – this year’s CGC
finally has a cricket game.It’s an especially well timed one too,
because at the time of writing England are about to launch the most heroic
sporting comeback resulting in them winning the 2013/14 ashes 3-2.The Half Ashes is here to help us celebrate
this historic victory to come.

Programmed in C, and like
so many of Steve’s other CGC games, this has so much to it.Going by most people’s standards T.H.A. is a
crap game, mainly as the graphics are simple but I would say the spectrum’s palette
was heaven sent for a cricket game.You take control of the
fielding side, and unsurprisingly have to bowl out 10 batsmen within 30 (rather unorthodox) overs.At first glance the keys appear a little unwieldy
but bearing in mind you need to control 11 men they are actually excellent once
you get to grips with them.Once you
have set (your ideally unorthodox)
field you get to the task of bowling, the speed and aim of the ball can be
regulated by bowler position and the rate you toggle keys ‘C’ and ‘M’.It is possible to get a batsman out in the
usual ways, run outs being most common, then being bowled, followed by catching
least.

Cricket is not everyone’s
cup of tea, so for those people The Half Ashes will be just as tedious as the long Wednesday
afternoons spent standing around playing pocket billiards on the boundary during
P.E.But for people who enjoy such a
profound game as cricket it’s a real treat.As said, there is so much to it – setting fields, getting the ball right,
stopping the ball hitting the boundary.Absolutely fascinating, and I will keep returning to this game.

At least I would, if it was
a bit more stable.I managed to make it
return to BASIC (Out of Memory Error) and
crash over about 1 hours play.So
Steve has just about saved face with these rather irritating flaws.But if he sorts the bugs and gives it a bit more
polish (starting with a nice wicket
clattering noise), this would probably be the best cricket game for the
Spectrum ever!Thank you Steve, and as
Geoffrey Boycott so often says:

Saturday, 14 December 2013

This Race ‘n’ shunt game
marks MykeP’s 3rd entry into the competition, and what a late
spurter he’s proving to be.For those in
the know BDTOZX is based on a modern game of a similar name, in which (after a bit of research) you need to
drive in a frightfully unsafe manner,
crashing into other cars in order to cross the finish line first.

I actually thought that
with the release of Rally Driver in 1984,
there was nothing new that could be added to the genre, but how wrong I
was.If RD offered sweaty, palpitating,
touch sensitive action, BDTOZX can be described as being at the opposite end of
the Spectrum.And it is from the get go,
because as soon as it loads you are treated to an incredibly long pause while
it loads, populates, randomizes* and initialises…..stuff. Though as it turns out this pause seems
unfortunately brief because after it comes the ‘music’ which I gather is by ‘My
Chemical Romance’ and ‘Lady Gaga’ (as
Myke calls them).While it may be accomplished,
it hurts.A huge amount of work has
gone into this game (which I’m not sure I’m
doing justice to here), which has numerous nods to modern gaming events
like ‘unlockable games’ which of course, fail to work.

It’s amazing how slow
Spectrum BASIC can be sometimes (thankfully
I had a mountain of ket** delivered last week), and I’d say Myke has pushed
in all the stops to make it so.For this
game to be exciting in any real sense you have to crank the emulator right up.But at a pedestrian 3.5MHz you take on a zen
like understanding of the world, where you can see everything, and/or nothing,
happening all at once.And while a
nicely drawn (and it is nicely drawn)
explosion can pump up the adrenaline at faster speeds, it takes on a more
poetic, contemplative angle at the snail’s pace BDTOZX was intended to run at.Good fun this, crank up the
emulator, have a look through the code at all the references, and be generally
impressed with an accomplished piece of absolute carp.Great work and thankyou
Myke!

Download here.* why did the speccy ROM use ‘z’ in randomise, for shame?

Thursday, 12 December 2013

Here we have a piece of not
so abandoned-ware, as it first made an appearance in the 2010 CGC and work
began on it some 25 years ago!So after all
this time and refinement this game had better be pretty bloody perfect.

One of the biggest
differences is that this version was done in asm rather than compiled, but the
thing is I can’t tell any difference between the two!The aim of this game is to
protect your rocket from the advancing sentient boxes (sorry, robots), or something.To do so you use the keys 6,7 for up/down and
0 to fire your fearsome laser against the random alien assault.The position of the rocket towards the left
means you don’t have that much time
to move to the correct row and shoot the robot, especially if you cock up the
keys which I don’t find that intuitive.I’m not sure what your space suit is made of but you have 3 lives, but
if just one robot hits the rocket it’s
game over.

There’s a lot of attention
to detail in this game, from the advanced loading screen to the in game
animations, well animation. While it’s a
lovely animation, the thing is you see it every time you complete a level, and
without a skip function it can begin to grate.In fact I’d swear blind that Iceman has timed it so that it’s not long
enough to take the mickey, but not short enough to avoid frustration.Genius!

Though it probably should be said that the graphics are a bit simple (let’s call them rustic).

Would be programmers may
want to check out some of the support material, of which there is an
astonishing amount.

The Hi-Score challenge
starts around 6820, I’m sure I could do better but can’t face seeing the
animation again.Lovely little game, nice to
see it (again).Thankyou Iceman!

Sunday, 8 December 2013

CrispSnatcher was apparently created in 1984 with
the intention of setting the blossoming games market on fire.Steve presumably just never found the right
software house, but perhaps he should have sent a copy to The Power House, the
company that saw SQIJ fit to unleash on the world because Crisp Snatcher is a
confusing buggy howler of a game!

Once we start the game we
are assaulted by a gaudy display that would have William Burroughs running from
the telly, and we encounter the first bug .Like SQIJ, Crisp Snatcher has a keyread bug!They are supposed to be 6,7 and 0 but for
some reason occasionally they just don’t register - Excellent work!

Once you manage to engage
with your rubber keys you can begin.Yellow crispy like blobs descend from the sky and you must catch them in
your bag, but beware the green errr thing, that travels from left to right
occasionally dropping crystals of glass.Of course it does.The crisps
fall too quickly and you move too slowly to be able to catch them, and it’s not
clear what the laser even does!

Or am I doing something
wrong?

A really nice touch is that
after the inevitable GAME OVER message, when you try to restart the game
crashes!

Saturday, 7 December 2013

Mountains of Ketchup (a pun on the ZX Spectrum adventure classic
Mountains of Ket of course) marks Rebelstar’s 15th entry to this
year’s CGC.First impressions suggest a
rather simple poorly presented BASIC adventure (though is faithful to Ket’s layout) but don’t be fooled – still condiments
run deep.

I like the use of action
keys instead of typing commands, and the fact there is no limit on how much you
can carry (though I’m not sure if I could
carry a lawnmower and a mine detector at the same time in reality).

I’m not going to spoil the surprise
but in addition to the simple text puzzles, there are some built in arcade style
mini-games embedded in MOK which brought the biggest smile to my face.

Mountains of ketchup is
tinged with tripe but is an excellent kernel of an idea that I’d love to see
expanded upon.I have to say I was disappointed
it finished so quickly!

It’s fair to say we have a
game here of epic proportions.In part
it is a rework of a game written in 1998, and with its 2 sided tape,
introduction, great graphics and numerous characters with backstories it’s
going to have to try bloody hard to be crap.Thankfully it doesn’t disappoint.You start naturally enough
with side 1, which following an excellent loading screen (with some more chortleworthy easter eggs) gives us game and character
info.You may notice that SUFTT bears a passing resemblance to some classic coin
op beat ‘em ups like Street Fighter, and like most of them it continues the
tradition of barmy backstories and stupendous mismatches (a cowboy versus an alien?).The 10 characters weave a tangled web of various grudges of one type or
another, and the only solution is obviously
to have a fighting contest where you kick and punch each other into submission.

It’s worth mentioning that
SUFFT pushes the spectrums memory to the limits (which the total of 9 minutes loading attests to), and Myke had to
drop 2 characters and the redefine keys option to save memory.

Onto side 2 and the game
itself. There are so many nice touches
here, great graphics, logos, menu screen – so good that it nearly doesn’t belong in the competition.But like so many other games it comes good (well, crap) when it comes down to the
gameplay.We can probably get Myke on
the trades description act for having the audacity to have the words ‘turbo’ in
the title!Once you have selected your
character you have to win 3 bouts each against 2 randomly selected opponents,
then you fight your nemesis. If you
make it that far, win or lose you get a victory or failure message specific to
the character.

The fight is a fairly
simple affair, and the same graphics are used every time (though there is a lovely detailed backdrop).The moves available are flying kick, punch,
kick and block.Which move is successful
depends on how many character cells you are from your opponent.Like a lot of beat ‘em ups there are certain
moves that do more damage than others and the player can easily win if relying
solely on them.The AI is actually quite
good so if you play ‘properly’ you will find the game surprisingly challenging,
and dare I say it – enjoyable (especially
if using an emulator you crank the processor up to 14MHz).So, Super UDG FighterZ 2
Turbo is definitely worth a go, but steel yourself for a potential physical and
psychological beating, especially if you get to hear the deadly putdown by
ZX-8100.“It looks like you’ve got jam all over your face”Ouch.Thankyou Myke!Tipshack: win every fight – walk into your
opponent and hold down ‘P’, you will take some hits but will always land more
yourself.

Saturday, 30 November 2013

Garrrr!Come ‘ere Jim laaaad, come sit on Cap’n Long
John Silver’s knee, I ahhzz a deal for ye.See this in my chest me hearty?That be a ZX-Spectrum, the finest booty I’ve ever swagged during my
sweet trade, from a bald pated lubber while aaat port o’ Cambridge.Let’s be playing a grand game, called dearest
urinals – that be an anagram of the finest story evarrrr told me hearty.This cassette I be holding here has but one
and twenty kilobytes of text from it, some fine graphics to boot and makes fine use of the F, the Z and the X.

Now then matey, here’s what
we do.Said Speccy be quoted a passage
from said book and you must unjumble them there letters as quick aaaazz you
can, the longer you wait the further me and my gen’lmen o’ fortune go.First one to treasure island wins, or rather
Jim laaad, if the jolly roger gets thaaar first, the squiffies aboard your
swaggy will experience a keelhauling they’ll never forget.

Thursday, 14 November 2013

This
is more, or less, based on the modern game character of a similar name.
Those familiar with it will know it involves button (or pad) mashing in order
to lay as many eggs as possible, and that this version bears little to no
resemblance whatsoever! The ever increasing number of sprites to be drawn
on the screen presents a problem for the spectrum coder: how to maintain game
speed and keep pushing those pixels around? Well, with some lightening
fast machine code, clever game design and general use of nifty tricks it is
more than possible to make a playable version for the good old ZX-Spectrum.But
this is the CGC, and thankfully MykeP has used none of the above!

Fans
of loading screens be sure to turn off turbo load and appreciate the lovely
easter eggs hiding under the attributes. This chicken based game is
programmed in BASIC and marks an excellent first entry from Myke.I've
not played any modern version, but I think I've got to grips with the
gameplay here. Press the any
key and the chicken lays an egg, fail to press a key before a random counter
winds down and they hatch. It is not actually so much about button
mashing, as button holding, as that suffices to keep the game going!The number of eggs on the screen is your
score. So naturally it is fairly easy to accrue a large number of eggs,
and equally naturally the spectrum slowly grinds to a halt giving S.N.A.I.L a
run for its money! I suppose in this sense the biggest challenge is one
of inner strength, how long can you bear to keep mashing a key and
watching your poor spectrum get tortured?

Nice
presentation, lovely beeper music, and an unplayable load of old carp that is
most welcome in the competition!
Thank you Myke!

Saturday, 9 November 2013

This ace BASIC game
features Monkey Doo, remember?Everyone’s
favourite t-shirted manky, mange ridden Monkey puppet from the 80’s?No, well maybe that’s because Retromad failed
to keep copies of his earlier C15 tapes, or one of the big software houses
failed to spot a smash hit when it dropped on the doormat.No matter, as Monkey Doo is now available
again for the ZX-Spectrum, and this time it’s the full package – game, inlay and hit single, yes, I said hit single.

Monkey Doo’s Fruit Salad
gets off to a great start as it is supplied as a z80 file on which you have to
type RUN to start.Then follows a
loonnnnnggg intro with piccies, beeps, references to the Grattan catalogue, and
some instructions along the way.The aim
of the game is to make Monkey Doo 8 fruit salads, not just any old fruit salad
mind – it has to be composed of an apple and a orange and a banana and a
cherry (different to the one on the inlay which appears to be festooned with Monkey stools, or perhaps blackberries).There must be no fruplicates (that’s shorthand for fruit duplicates in
order to save time) and you have to think quick – if you don’t press the
right key in time the game is over and all the fruit salads are lost.1 fruit salad is manageable but each time it
speeds up.Press A for Apple, B for
Banana, C for Cherry and O for Orange, when a fruplicate appears press D to discard.

Sounds complicated?Don’t worry if so, because Retromad has
supplied a catchy hit single to help you remember what to do.

MDFS is both crap and
brilliant.It encapsulates a lot of
emotions, it looks and sounds like an early 80’s bit of homebrew but there are
no bugs and it’s addictive to play.I
found myself wanting to get to the next level, but mind and body don’t always
seem to collaborate fast enough, each time I read the words “HERE COMES THE FRUIT”
I was genuinely nervous about completing the level.

So far I can only make a
pathetic 5 fruit salads (poor Monkey Doo), but for the person who completes the
game there is a prize – just jot down the London phone number and give the
code.Yes I’ve peeked at the program to
see that, and yes I was tempted to ring the (probably made up) number and give
the code.I could of course be wrong and
there is actually an amazing prize – but there’s only one way to find out – GET PLAYING!Thankyou Retromad!Download game here.Download Inlay here.Download ‘hit’ single here.

Tuesday, 5 November 2013

Firstly, congratulations to
Steve on his world record 22nd entry to the CGC.

This entry takes us all the
way back to 1971, and you are a primary school teacher trying to evade the milk
snatching talons of Margaret Thatcher.

It’s actually a pretty nice
maze game, the object of which is to run around the school desks collecting
milk and giving it to the pupil most in need.Instead of the traditional symptoms of malnutrition, this game
demonstrates need for milk by the sprite flashing on and off!Once delivered, another carton appears
elsewhere in the maze (you can only carry
one at a time naturally) and you continue until you’ve done 12 pints or
Maggie gets you.The further you progress
in this maze Maggie seems to become better at chasing you, to the point that it
does get pretty frantic toward the end of each level (Steve informs me Maggie uses A* pathfinding!).

MT:MS has plenty of crap
qualities but I must confess to being disappointed to have completed it so
quickly, so it can’t be that bad eh?

The game is silent, apart
from when Maggie does catch you, and
you hear her utter those terrifying words… “I
want milk”.

(either
that or ‘I like pomme frites’, I can’t quite tell).

Thankyou Steve!There’ll be an appropriate prize with your
name on it at the end of the year.

Tuesday, 29 October 2013

Oh No!The tardis has spun after control after a
heavy session of Galiferian whistling angel juice, or something.Unlike Steve’s other games this one is
programmed in C and despite being probably impossible without reading the tips/walkthrough
it is rather good (I say probably
impossible, but that might just be because I’m rubbish at text adventures).

You don’t have to be a Dr
Who expert to recognise the chilling scream of the Dalek – “EXTERMINATE”,
superbly rendered using BEEPFX.

Have a bash & see how
far you get (clues are cunningly hidden
in the text), then read the tips and see if you can solve it.It has some crap qualities but at its heart
is a well designed puzzle with some depth to it.

Also put your hands
together to Steve’s entry number 21, equal to the record of most CGC entries in
one year.Thankyou Steve!